


Away From Home

by Tonko



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 05:14:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4509162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonko/pseuds/Tonko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pell watches over Vivi during a rare break from her duties.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Away From Home

**Author's Note:**

> Fic being archived over from LJ. Originally done for an hc_bingo challeng, the "homesick" square. Beta'd by printfogey <3

Even royalty could sometimes be allowed just that little time off, Pell thought, reluctantly satisfied, from his gliding height above his princess. Carue was making excellent time across the desert.

The sea was visible to him from this altitude, a sparkling blue edge to the horizon. Just ahead, Nanohana rose out of the desert. Below, his charges were climbing a large dune, and Pell suspected it might just offer enough height for them to see--yes. Carue bolted off at a faster clip than before and Pell flapped a few times to match their new pace. 

He could have flown her to the coast himself, and faster, but it would have been too cruel to the duck to leave him behind. Carue would probably just have followed anyway. He felt his mistress’ moods strongly, and Pell was quite sure that the duck shared this one himself, as well.

It wasn’t common for Princess Vivi to succumb to this wistful melancholy--or more likely, he thought unhappily, it was more common than he or anyone else thought, only hidden away most times--but the palace staff recognized it by now, and when they could see it, they made efforts to keep petty issues away from her, as much as she normally tried to have her attention across the breadth of activity in her home. They lightened her load as much as was possible, and leisure took the place of politics here and there. The kitchen menu altered from its usual traditional dishes to include a few others, all excellently conceived, of course, and yet of a particular simplicity that any ship's cook might recognize, or at least one in particular.

Now, a rare gift; events had conspired to let them clear her schedule. And she was able to travel, just for a little while.

They skirted Nanohana and made the rocky sea cliffs just as the sun was climbing up towards proper noon height, and Pell circled once, then twice, before landing to join Princess Vivi as she opened the wide umbrella she’d unslung from Carue’s back. He returned to human form and took it from her to plant its end firmly in a gap in the stone, bracing it there with a few more rocks. He hid his frown when she didn’t protest, as she usually would, that she could do that herself. His awareness of that fact wouldn’t have stopped him even so, but it was in her nature to hold on to her independence, no matter that he would always be there and ready to serve.

Her eyes were drawn towards the sea, and she wasn’t concerned in the least with protesting his manners. Carue came to sit beside her, shaking a carpet free from his saddle packs and laying it out for her. She settled down and leaned against him. Pell divested himself of the gear he’d carried--extra food and water, a bedroll, and various and sundry small things his princess ought to have at hand. He kept dedicated denden mushi to the palace guard in his pocket. 

He stepped out of the shade of the umbrella, left her to her thoughts, and began setting up her tent. He let his own gaze go the sea now and then, as often as he raised his eyes to scan the immediate area for any intrusion on her privacy. 

Some kung-fu dugongs were the only other creatures nearby, rather far from their usual home at the river's mouth. They slept in the midday sun on the narrow strip of rocky beach at the base of the cliff. 

The tent arranged to his liking, he took up a sentry post and listened to the breeze and the ocean, to what the occasional change in the wind brought him of Vivi's quiet words to Carue, and the duck’s sympathetic noises in return.

A sound of unhappy surprise reached him, even without the breeze’s help, and he was at the edge of the umbrella’s shadow in an instant. “Vivi-sama?” he asked. 

She was looking sadly into Carue’s saddlebags, now all untied and piled neatly on the ground. She glanced up at him when he spoke. “Oh, it seems I forgot something,” she murmured, looking at the pile with a small sigh and a frown.

Oh--yes. “Perhaps this?” he asked, reaching into the pocket on the inside of his robe. He’d seen something fall from Carue’s supplies when they’d departed from the oasis they’d paused at to drink, between Alubarna and Nanohana. He'd had retrieved it before changing forms and taking off again to follow them.

It was a black felt pen, a strange thing for a princess to carry to the seaside cliffs.

“Pell!” Her face lit up and she took it gleefully, and he was rather taken aback by her attachment to such a little thing, if warmed by the degree of her gratitude. “Thank you!”

“Not at all,” he demurred, and withdrew again.

Back at his chosen post, he could see the perimeter, but he could also see her. After her joy at the pen, he let his curiosity get the better of him, watching as she uncapped it and slid off the wide worked-silver cuff that she wore above the bracelets on her wrist.

She marked herself, black ink in solid lines against her skin, while Carue watched, and then he spread his wing, and she marked him too.

No pirates were out there to recognize the symbol on the princess’ arm, Pell knew, nor would just any pirates ever see it, he was well aware. Only one crew had that distinction.

The weight of the boy-captain had been so slight on his back, utterly belying the power that had finally brought down Crocodile.

Pell raised his gaze back to the water. There was a marine ship out there now, on patrol between Nanohana and Katorea. Fishing craft bobbed farther out, and local craft passed closer to shore. A ferry was circling away towards the river mouth.

Princess Vivi, he felt very sure, saw another sail moving across those waters. And somewhere else, very far away, the Strawhat Pirates’ sail rode the waves, and they were carrying part of her with them. He wished them well.


End file.
